Lesson Lineup

Guide for independent music teachers

How to keep lesson notes organized.

Your notes are in three notebooks, and one of them is in the car. Keep everything about a student on that student's record instead, and it's there whenever you open the app.

One record per student, everything on it

Each kind of note drifts to its own place. This week's assignment goes in the notebook, how the student is doing stays in your head, and the list of pieces ends up on a sticky note. In Lesson Lineup each student has one record, with tabs for their details, practice log, attendance and notes, and repertoire. When you write "work on the left hand" in September, it's still there in November, when the same problem walks back in.

Write a separate note for each reader

Say Ben's left hand is still dragging in the Clementi sonatina. Ben needs to know what to play this week, in a couple of lines with measure numbers. His mom wants to know whether it's going well, in words that don't need a music degree. Your own note is where you admit the left hand has been "nearly there" since October, and it's the one you'll actually read when you plan next week's lesson. Keep them as three separate notes. Only the student's and the parent's are ever seen by anyone else.

Lesson Lineup gives every lesson those three notes. When you save the lesson, tick the family contacts who should get them, and the student's and parent's notes arrive by email. Your private note is never sent. For the notes you write most weeks, save a template and start from it.

Give every piece a status and a date

A piece you assigned in October can still say "in progress" in March because nobody went back and changed it. So list each piece with its title, composer and the date you assigned it, and update its status as it comes along. Then you can look down the list and see what's current and what's stuck, without paging back through old notes.

Questions

Where should lesson notes live?

On the student's own record, next to their practice log, attendance and repertoire. When you open the app before a lesson, last week's notes are right there with everything else about that student.

Should parents see everything I write about a lesson?

No. Keep separate notes for the student, the parent and yourself: the assignment for the student, a progress summary for the parent, and the frank version, frustrations and all, for you.

How do I track what pieces a student is working on?

With a repertoire list on the student's record: title, composer, the date you assigned it, and a status you update as the piece comes along.

The numbers belong on the same record

Notes cover what happened in the lesson. The practice log covers the days in between, and it sits on the same record: